


The Kingslayer's whore

by paperinik



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Historians, Not Beta Read, Soulmates, cameos from other characters - Freeform, twin swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperinik/pseuds/paperinik
Summary: Dr. Brienne Tarth embarks on a quest to try and uncover the secrets of the past, not knowing that hers is waiting for her.Fanfic written for the 2020 Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange.Despite its title, this work doesn't contain smut; warning for language and one or two graphic scenes.Notice: I self-beta’d this fic on the last day of the exchange. To those who have read this before, I am so sorry. To those who liked it anyway, you are my heores.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 30
Kudos: 98
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Fic Exchange 2020





	The Kingslayer's whore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sea_spirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sea_spirit/gifts).



> My sea_spirit's prompt of choice was "Jaime and Brienne meet in a library", but I guess I ended up including "Jaime and Brienne at/on/in the sea" in some way too.  
> And since after 2, you make 3, I've put a hint of her third prompt as well.
> 
> I don't belong to the Academic world, so this work may be pretty inaccurate in lots of ways. It's also unbeta'd, so it may contain lots of mistakes too.
> 
> The story that came to my mind after reading the prompts kept expanding while I was writing and spiralled out of control. It would have needed so much more time to be properly developed, but I did the best that I could with the time I had.
> 
> To sea_spirit: this work won't probably be what you expected from your prompts, but I hope you'll like it anyway. ♥
> 
> Thanks to JaylinnW, ilikeblue and NightReaderEnigma for advices, encouragements and letting me know of this exchange!

Queuing to board the ferry, Brienne kept turning nervously the ticket in her hands.

It was a beautiful day in King’s Landing, and hadn’t it been a travel motivated by work, she would have enjoyed the 4 hours journey to Tarth on the open deck, relishing the warmth of the spring sun and the coolness of the salty breeze on her skin. 

Instead, she was going to spend that time below deck, putting her notes in order.

She, Dr. Brienne Tarth, was considered the leading expert on the historical figure of Goldenhand the Just and this travel could have given her the breakthrough of a lifetime.

Everyone in modern Westeros knew the legend of Goldenhand, the golden knight from the age of heroes who sacrificed himself to save the city of King’s Landing. 

Brienne’s field of expertise, however, was the identity of the man who had inspired the myths and whose memory had considerably faded in the last thousand of years.

While the masses knew him from an utterly unreliable from an historical point of view, but incredibly successful and controversial novel, only scholars remembered more of ser Jaime Lannister than his name. 

Called the Kingslayer, he had been a disgraced knight in life in fact, despised by his peers for having killed the King he had sworn to protect, and whose true story had been revealed by his brother only after his death.

But a frail trail of documents and clues, more an intuition in fact, was driving Brienne to the island of Tarth to try and uncover if the legend was wrong and ser Jaime Lannister had in fact survived King’s Landing’s dragon conquest.

When she had introduced her theory to the head of her department at King’s Landing historical museum, Dr. Pycelle, a middle-aged man more interested in avoiding problems than in doing actual research, he had laughed her off. 

He had told her to stop chasing dreams and legends, instructing her to concentrate on the press release for the exhibition about the millennium anniversary of the storming of King’s Landing instead. 

That was Pycelle’s job, of course, but not one that would have brought instant recognition to the arrogant idiot, so, as usual, he had decided it was his assistant researcher’s duty.

As a result, Brienne had taken a week off from work and had departed for an “indipendent” research, leaving her superior to deal with the press release.  
She was now on a mission to try and prove that a sword kept in Evenfall University was indeed the mythical Widow’s Wail, and, if this was the case, how and who had brought it there.

While the ferry was setting sail, she chose a dark wood bench with a table by the window.  
Breathing in the salty air, she looked away from the coastline and opened her notes, ready to review them in view of her appointment at Tarth library.

*****

_The sky over King’s Landing was the darkest it had ever been in human memory._

_Under the raging storm, Jaime’s heart sank when he turned to watch the city burn to ashes._ _  
_ _The Red Keep was half collapsed, a darkened pile of burnt bricks precariously standing in place of the magnificent building that used to overlook the capital ._

_Black smoke columns were rising from the fires that the pouring rain had put out, darkening even more the gloomy sky. Across it, sporadic bursts of flames revealed the position of the dragons that were destroying the city and everyone in it._

_There was no place for him in that world anymore._ _  
_ _He was a traitor in everyone’s eyes: the North he had left, hoping to save King’s Landing once more, his sister whom he had abandoned to fight North and the new Queen too, whose trust he had never cared to conquer._

 _Even his brother’s life, as hand of the new dragon Queen would have been easier without a traitor as a sibling._ _  
_ _With sorrow, he bid him a silent farewell in his broken heart and turned to reach the shore._

_Around him, people overwhelmed with panic and pain were running around in what was left of the streets. Some were screaming, others crying, some just looked lost, aimlessly wandering in the thick dust._

_Covering his nose and mouth with an arm to try and breathe, Jaime limped in Flea Bottom’s direction. The destruction in this part of the city was unimaginable._ _  
_ _Burnt bodies were lying all over the place, amid collapsed buildings and still going fires._

 _When a terrifying roar came from above, he instinctively jumped to the ground, finding himself facing a burnt skull._ _  
_ _Darkened fragments of skin were hanging from the charred bones, giving no clue of how old that person had been, or what its life had been like._ _  
_ _It just stayed there, unmoving, its empty orbits staring inert back at him._

 _Would it ever be found by his family, if it still even had a living one?_ _  
_ _Would it be recognised by a loved one?_

_If he himself had died there, would he ever be found?_

_When the black, terrifying, dragon had passed, Jaime got on his feet and casted one last glance to those bones without a name, while an idea was slowly forming in his mind._

_He looked around to check if someone had seen him, but nobody was paying attention to just another person trying to escape a nightmare._ _  
_ _Confident that nobody would have noticed his movements in the thick fog of dust and ashes, he untied his golden hand._

_“Sorry”, he muttered to the inert body, before shuttering its blackened hand with a kick and replacing it with his fake one._

_Having hidden his work with a couple of bricks he had found nearby to ensure it wouldn’t be stolen, he proceeded to the nearby shore, leaving behind both the city and his identity._

_Waiting for him behind a rock, there was a shady sailor, who didn’t give the impression of recognising his passenger, or maybe he did, but just didn’t care._

_“Where to, my Lord?” were the only word, heavily accented, that he uttered._

_Jaime didn’t need any time to think about it._ _  
_ _There was no place for him in the new world that was going to be formed._ _  
_ _He was a traitor, a sinner, an oathbreaker._

 _But there was still one promise he could keep._ _  
_ _One place for him and one last chance for redemption._

_“Tarth”_

*****

The movement of the ferry, gently rocking up and down and following the short waves of the spring-like Narrow sea, was helping Brienne’s concentration while she reviewed her notes.

A part from some reports on the wars during the age of Heroes that had miraculously survived to modern times, ser Jaime Lannister’s story had mainly been told by his brother Tyrion, controversial hand of the Queen during the second Targaryen era.

Some scholars, most of them from the past, had been somehow sceptical of his version of the events, for long time considered only an attempt to improve the Lannister family’s reputation. 

In modern times, however, and especially since the finding of some documents quoting parts of the White Book, Tyrion’s version had been generally accepted as truthful.

The official story went that ser Jaime had died defending the people of King’s Landing from Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons.  
His legendary hand had been found soon after the war and was now one of the most famous and ravengrammed pieces in display at King’s Landing Historical Museum.

Since when she was a little girl, Brienne loved to get lost in that museum.  
She used to spend hours wandering in those rooms, admiring swords as well armors and reading and dreaming of the heroic deeds of the knights from the past. 

And that hand at the center of the main hall had always fascinated her.  
Its distinctiveness, its elaborate details and its myth, of how Goldenhand had seen his own flesh transformed in gold by the Gods as a reward for saving the Maid of Tarth from the attack of a monster… everything of that piece of metal had always captivated her.

Growing up, those stories had continued to attract her and she had ended up studying history, specialising precisely on the figure behind the legend.

A small detail had always bugged her though.  
Goldenhand’s Valyrian sword seemed to have vanished out of thin air during his last battle.

In years long studies, Brienne had been able to find a report of an almost identical sword that had appeared in Penthos just a few weeks after the destruction of King’s Landing.  
From there, it occasionally resurfaced across Westeros and Essos, always described as a marvellous sword, but never recognised as Window’s Wail.

It had ended up in the depository of the Evenfall historical museum, where she hoped to be allowed to study it.

In a twist of fate, though, waiting for her at Evenfall library was Jaime Lannister himself.

Not the subject of her studies, of course, but Dr. Lannister, self-appointed expert on the Blue Knight, whose real identity he fiercely claimed to be the Maid of Tarth and not Podrick Payne, as widely accepted by the historians community.

Brienne scoffed.

She still remembered him, at college. Popular, athletic, extremely charming.  
Constantly followed by a group of adoring female students. With one smile he could convince anyone, from the professors to the dean, to let him do whatever he wanted.

She hadn’t seen him since their final year, when a debate among colleagues on the Blue Knight had blown up to a full argument, peaked with him calling her names.  
They’d never met again.

He had gone on writing _the Kingslayer’s Whore_ , the most historically inaccurate controversial novel ever published that had made him a best selling author, while she had pursued an academic career and had successfully proceeded to avoid him.  
Until now.

When the weirwoodmail from Evenfall University had come through with her appointment with the head of the Historical Department she thought it was a joke.  
After much thought, she had decided that the only plausible explanation for Dr. Jaime Lannister to have such a prestigious position, while she was stuck doing the paperwork for a mediocre jerk, was money and connections.

For a short moment she had even considered to cancel the trip, but then she had imagined his smug smile at the news and had decided to not give him this satisfaction and go anyway.

Looking at the landscape of Tarth island getting closer through her window, Brienne calmly thought that she only needed to stick to her plan: meet him, ask what she needed, and never see him again.

*****

_The Blackwater Bay’s stormy waters mirrored the turmoil in the capital._

_The small ship he had boarded after the short passage in the rowing boat rolled left and right, emitting painful squeaks as it was approaching the Narrow Sea._

_Violent waves poured on the deck, dragging with their strength both men and equipment._ _  
_ _The sails, uncontrollable, were full of opposite winds and were driving the ship on unknown courses._ _  
_ _Through the thick rain, Jaime could only see a far away land. He could not help but wonder if that was Tarth, and his memory immediately went to his last night in the North, looking for comfort._

_The fire was still going in Brienne’s room that night and their limbs tangled under the thick furs gave him all the warmth he needed._

_“She’ll burn the city, Brienne, I can’t let her do it.” he had confided his Lady through dire whispers. “I haven’t killed her father and been called Kingslayer for years so that she could do the same._ _  
_ _I must depart under the cover of the dark, tomorrow”_

_“They’ll think you are a traitor if you don’t say anything.” she had argued quietly. They had been having the same conversation for days, polishing the details and looking for possible hitches. But his rightful knight could never accept to stain his honour._

_“Let them. Let them think I want to save my sister, I’ll never reach King’s Landing if they know my real target is Daenerys.”_

_“Let me come with you, then”_

_“I can’t let you tarnish your honour further than I’ve already did.” he answered with a mischievous smile, before reaching for her lips. “I’ll come back for you, my Lady, I promise.” he whispered in her ear, touching her forehead with his own._ _  
_ _She smiled at him, with the gleaming smile she reserved to his eyes only._

 _  
_ _“You can’t come back in the North if you leave like this, they’ll execute you on sight.”_

_“Name any place where we can meet again and I’ll come, then.”_

_She had thought on it for a moment, then had replied:_

_“Tarth”_

_A sudden lightning hit the main mast and brought Jaime back to reality._ _  
_ _The heavy wood folded in half and hitting the ship, breaking it in two parts._ _  
_ _In a moment, the one handed knight was thrown in the water and felt the whirl produced by the wreck dragging him down._

 _He thrashed convulsively, looking panicky for air, until, finally, the swirl dispelled, freeing him._ _  
_ _Exhausted, he reached with his stump a piece of wood near him as soon as he resurfaced, while with his other arm was trying in vain to reach the lands he had seen earlier._

_But in the deep darkness of the night, torn apart only by scattered lightnings, he couldn’t tell anything apart. Abandoning himself at the mercy of the waves pushing him up and down, he reached with his stump Widow’s Wail, still fastened at his hip, looking for comfort._

_While the voices around him faded gradually away, leaving only silence around him, he focused on Brienne, hoping the thought would give him strength._ _  
_ _He had to get back to her._

_Jaime held for long time on to the wood under his arms, until his muscles failed him and the sea swallowed his body._

_Drowning in the dark, he desperately thought of his lady’s eyes. Blue as sapphires, blue as the Tarth waters. For a fleeting moment, it seemed fitting to drown in the blue._ _  
_ _Then, the nothingness swallowed him._

*****

Standing in front of the door, Brienne was staring at the nameplate in front of her.  
Golden letters on a varnished black background inexorably announcing Dr. Lannister’s presence behind that wall.  
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door, really hoping that her appointment would turn out fine.

When, soon after, the woman heard a voice shout something she guessed was an invite, Brienne entered the room.  
It was smaller than she had expected. Or maybe were the messy piles of books and papers spread around, amassed over shelves and stacked on the floor, that made it look smaller.

An ancient mahogany desk was at the center of the room, placed in front of a huge window facing the green hills behind the faculty, and was buried, as the rest of the office, in papers and sheets.

Sat on a richly decorated wooden chair, Dr. Lannister raised his face to see who was entering.  
His hair was shorter now, there was some hint of a wrinkle around his glinting green eyes, but his magnetic charm that had made half of the female population of the campus swoon during college was still the same.

“Dr. Lannister, good afternoon” Brienne began, extending her hand in front of her “Thank you for receiving me.”

“What’s all of this formality, Brienne? Don’t you remember our days in college?” He greeted her with a wide smile, and she thought that maybe he had changed, after all.

“I sometimes think of them, fondly” he added with a suggestive grin.

Maybe he hadn’t.  
He was the same she remembered. She knew perfectly well what was coming.  
He was going to try and provoke her. It had always seemed his favourite pastime. But now, at least, she had learnt to fight.

She straightened her back and, trying to ignore him, she said:

“Yes, well, I’m actually here for -”

“The last time I saw you, I seem to recall, you were pretty upset” he interrupted her.

She huffed. Determined to stay focused and make this encounter the shortest possible, she tried again.

“I was wondering if –“

“What was that made you so upset, was it something I said?” he went on, ostensibly ignoring her. “Was it because I said the Blue Knight wasn’t Podrick Payne? No… that was earlier in the discussion..” he said, making theatrical gestures to show he was pondering.

Brienne gave up trying to ignore him.  
She sat on the chair in front of her, crossed her arms on her chest and waited for him to complete his show.

“Wench!” he exclaimed triumphantly, while she flushed bright red.  
“That was it, wasn’t it?  
So tell me, wench, what brings you here in Tarth?” he flashed a smoldering grin and waited for his victory.

“Can you please be serious for a moment?” she retorted, annoyed.  
“I am here to study the sword stored in this library, which I believe is Widow’s Wail.”  
She stated, energetically taking her notes out from her black hiking backpack, at the same time irked and determined to not let him start blabbering again.

“Brienne Tarth. Always spoiling all the fun.  
Are you still studying ser Jaime Lannister? I’m flattered, someone could say you have a hidden passion towards me since college. Do you?” 

“I do not”. She quickly stated, blushing even redder.  
She didn’t, for real.  
He was charming and handsome, of course. But a crush on him? How could she even have a crush on someone so infuriating like Dr. Jaime Lannister?

“Come on, you can admit it now, you did have a crush on me in college” he said, thoroughly amused.

She sighed. Again.

“Listen, I am using my days off to do this research.  
I am glad, really glad that things got around for you and you can spend your days mocking whoever comes to talk to you or writing junk novels.  
I don’t have time to lose. Will you show me that sword or not?”

He bit his lip, suppressing a laugh.

“Oh please, don’t even go there.” she burst out, quickly collecting her notes from the desk and haphazardly throwing them in the back pack.  
“I knew, I knew when I received that weirwoodmail that this was a mistake.  
But I thought that maybe you had grown, and you could be serious.

But no, this is a joke for you, isn’t it?  
You write a novel and people suddenly think you are this great new populariser, bringing history to the masses in a new entertaining way.  
You didn’t have to fight to earn a chair. You just sold lies and got a reward for that.”

Talking, she had reached the door. She turned to glance back at him.  
The mirth had disappeared from his face, leaving space to a blank expression. He didn’t even answer, or acknowledge her. He looked busy, typing on his computer as if he was alone in that office.

“Thank you for your time, Doctor Lannister.” she said, and left the building.

A whiff of cleanser mixed with the intense, sweet, perfume of the oleanders coming from outside welcomed Brienne in her tiny room of the cheap boarding house she had booked just behind the seafront.

Only few rays of light filtered through the half-closed shutters, dying of a shade of ochre everything in the bleak room. 

Brienne tossed herself across the bed, raising a small puff of dust when she hit the mattress and gazed at the yellowish ceiling, contemplating what a massive failure that afternoon had just been.

She had known since the moment she had been notified she had to speak with Dr. Jaime Lannister that it wasn’t going to be a piece of Dornian cake, but she had really hoped the man had changed.

Sighing, she got up and started to sort out her notes, thinking how to start again from square one.  
Surely there was someone else in all of Evenfall University she could speak to.  
And if not, she wasn’t going to abandon this trail, not even if it meant spending her holidays camping outside the library, trying to convince her colleague to grant her access to the archives.

With a thud, a blue booklet fell from the handful of papers on the discoloured carpet, catching her attention.  
The small publication definitely didn’t belong to her.  
Grey letters on a turquoise background on the cover read  
“The Blue Knight. The first female knight in Westerosi history. An essay by Dr. J. Lannister”.

She must had taken it by accident when she had collected her notes.  
Brienne scoffed, tossed the booklet in the bin and went for a shower.

Under the warm, relaxing flow of water, the thought of that book didn’t leave her alone.  
Since the day she had met him, Dr. Jaime Lannister had always been so sure, so confident in an unmovable way on the identity of the Blue Knight, that having the possibility to know what made him so adamant was a hard chance to pass on.

When she got out of the bathroom, she stared for a minute at that insolently silent pamphlet.  
She bit her lip, looking around her. If she had read it now, nobody would have ever known.

Quickly, as if she feared to be caught in the process, Brienne grabbed the small book and with damp hair sat in the small terrace to read the essay in the pleasantly lukewarm afternoon sun.

*****

_From the bottom of the cold darkness he had fallen in, he could hear distant voices._

_Foreign voices, saying words, whose meaning seemed hard to grasp at first._ _  
_ _Then, he heard the calls of the seagulls and the sound of the gentle lapping of calm waves breaking on the keel of a ship._

_When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a blue sky, then three backlit heads hovering over him._

_“He’s awake!” One of the three was shouting to someone far off._

_“He looks confused” Another one was stating._

_“What’s your name?” The third asked him._

_Thinking was painful, and difficult._ _  
_ _“J-Jon Rivers” he somehow had the readiness to mutter, even if with extreme strain._

 _Two of the men over him mumbled something incomprehensible, then they propped him against some barrels._ _  
_ _As soon as his last moments in the sea came to his mind, he checked his hips._ _  
__His heart sank.Widow’s Wail was gone._

_“My sword. Where is my sword?” he painfully asked, panicking, coughing and vomiting salted water, ignoring the question directed at him._

_“Calm down, ser, the captain has it. He didn’t want us to fight for such a beautiful sword if you had died. Are you a lord, or something?”_

_“I am not” He answered, strained. Not anymore, anyway, he thought._

_“Where were you travelling to?” they asked again._

_“Tarth”_

_“And what business does a cripple like you have in Tarth, huh? Are you hoping to get the Evenstar daughter? You brought your sword to fight her?” The stranger was laughing, and clearly he thought the man they had fished out wasn’t because of weakness._

_“I’m not sure you really should fight her, my Lord” another one was chiming in._ _  
_ _“I’ve seen her once, huge and sulking. I can tell you, I’m not even sure she is a Lady down there” More laughs. Jaime felt nauseous and the worst thing for him was that he couldn’t do anything to defend her, he was too weak and short of a hand._

_“I’ve heard she’s good with the sword” the first one was saying again._

_“Good indeed. You’re late ser, she’s taken someone else’s sword already._ _  
_ _She got back to her island after the war._ _  
_ _She’s pregnant. They say she’s carrying the Kingslayer’s bastard.”_

_“They don’t call her the Kingslayer’s whore for nothing” A third man joined them._

_Jaime stopped listening to them, boiling with rage._ _  
_ _How did they dare insult the most honourable knight in Westeros? He wasn’t healthy enough to answer and insult them as they deserved, but he really dreamed of silencing them._

 _The last sentence, though, had washed away the frustration, at least in part._ _  
_ _A child. Brienne was expecting his child._

 _It wasn’t a bastard, for what was worth._ _  
_ _He thought tenderly of the small sept covered in snow in the North._ _  
_ _He thought of their hands tied together, their voices, repeating the sacred vows at once._ _  
_ I am hers, and she is mine _. Their own voices echoed in his head, giving him some strength._

 _Of course nobody believed such a honourable Lady had married the Kingslayer._ _  
_ _He had to go to her and make the things right._

 _He cleared his throat._ _  
_ _“I need to go to Tarth”. He demanded, using all the Lannister pride he could summon in his state._

 _“Listen my Lord, we’re too many miles away from Tarth._ _  
_ _Our first stop is Penthos. Then we continue East”._

*****

When the alarm clock went off the following morning, Brienne groaned loudly.

The book had surprisingly turned out to be quite a read.  
She had reached the last pages in the dead of night and had slept… something like three hours, maybe?

All the new theories she had learnt continued to spin in her sleep-deprived brain while she got ready for the day, and refused to stop until she sat in the shade of a huge pine at a cozy bar table on the seafront, trying to process them with a cup of black Tyroshi coffee.

She couldn’t quite believe that Dr. Lannister had linked the tale of how Goldenhand had saved the beautiful Maid to the epithet of Brienne the Beauty in a way that actually made sense! 

And the fact that Podrick Payne was indeed too young to have been gifted Oathkeeper and sent on a quest was unbelievably ignored by history books.  
Her colleague had even been able to recover an old freefolk tale she had never heard about of a blue eyed Lady Knight who fought during the battle of Winterfell.  
Not to mention the apocryphal tales of Maester Tarly of the Night’s Watch. Dr. Lannister had dedicated three chapters to that.

It all impressively and infuriatingly fit together in an astonishing way.

An hour later, Brienne entered Dr. Lannister’s office without a knock on the door and threw his book on the desk, leaning on the surface in front of him.

“Why you did not mention this pamphlet?” She inquired without formalities.  
He quizzically looked at the book, then at her, unperturbed by how she had barged in.

“You never asked.”  
He plainly answered with a shrug, staying at his desk and raising innocently his eyebrows.

“I did”

“No, you didn’t. You came here yesterday as everyone else, assuming I’m full of bullshit and the only reason why I have this chair is because my family name has bought me a degree.

Sadly for you, I am not a Lannister of Casterly Rock.  
I was born and raised on Tarth, I know the story of this place and of those who lived here. I’ve earned my position in this University because my colleagues here understand that research is made of different views and they acknowledge my theories are worth something.

As for _the Kingslayer’s Whore_ ,” he went on, keeping calm “it is just a work of fiction. Loosely based on reality, I can give you that, but it’s still fiction, as many of our eminent colleagues at the Citadel often forget.

Since nobody was going to listen to me in the academic environment, I thought to give it a try and reach the public out there. And since sex always helps to increase sales, I indulged with it and made the most controversial historic read of the last decade.  
And as you can see on my bank account, sex really raised the sales, and probably not only that.” He concluded with a cheeky grin.

“I am asking now.” She replied, serious.  
“How much of truth there is in _the Kingslayer’s Whore_ ?  
Did the Maid of Tarth really have an affair with Jaime Lannister?” 

“Oh my, has the unyielding Dr. Tarth read my novel too? I’m flattered” he smugly suggested.

She blushed.  
She had read some excerpts, for academic reasons. Well, truth to be told, maybe a bit more than “some”.  
But she wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of admitting it, for sure.  
Besides, she really needed answers. Everything she had studied, everything she had learnt had been turned upside down. 

Her brain was in a complete turmoil caused by the new information.  
And, incredibly, everything she knew on Ser Jaime Lannister fitted together even better now.

“Where did you find the sources for this pamphlet?” she pressed. “And why your work is not even taken into account in the debate between scholars, have you lied?”

His face turned in the blink of an eye in a deadly serious stare.  
“I don’t lie in my researches, doctor” he stated, suddenly cold.

She nodded.  
“I believe you”

He searched her earnest eyes in silence. Then he quietly spoke.

“When we were at college I illustrated my theory to Dr. Ebrose, do you remember that cunt?”  
She nodded, he was a cunt indeed. He had been the only professor who had given her an average mark instead of an excellent one. She still remembered his amenable voice saying “A woman cannot have a career in University, my sweet summer child. It’s simply not a place for you.”  
That voice had haunted her for a long time.

“You know what he kept repeating me while I was talking?” Dr. Lannister was saying “The ink is dry.  
Your dear colleagues are extremely attached to traditions and will never accept new theories or findings mining them.

So, since nobody was believing me anyway, I wrote my novel.  
And what I earned from that in the academic world is being called the Kingslayer.  
They still call me that when I go back to the continent.  
However, after a few years I met Dr Qyburn. He is...more open minded. He got expelled from KLU and asked me to follow him here.

At Evenfall University people are more forward-looking and welcomed my theories, even if almost nobody believes them. But, at least, I’m not being mocked for them.”

It was maybe the most serious conversation she had ever had with Dr. Jaime Lannister.  
Still, he hadn’t answered her yet. This dance they were having was starting to be unnerving.  
“But do you have any reliable source or not, then?” She urged again, impatient.

He immediately dropped his tale and fell silent.  
The man studied her for the longest moment with an unreadable expression on his face.  
It was almost as if he was deciding whether he could trust her or not.

“Follow me.” he said in the end, getting up from his chair.

She started to follow his steps.  
They swiftly and silently crossed the corridors of the huge library. From the big windows of the Evenfall castle Brienne could get astonishing glimpses of the bluest sea and the greenest hills she had ever seen, and through open doors she sometimes caught the sight of antiquities, or the inquisitive look of some researchers.

Once they had crossed an armoured door at the back of a magnificent hall, they started to descend in increasingly bare and narrow corridors, following a path that Brienne figured probably reached the heart of the hill.

Dr. Lannister finally stopped in a bleak, neon illuminated aisle, whose white plastered walls were punctuated by drab metal doors. Her escort typed a security code near one of them and entered the dark room in front of him.

Brienne stayed on the threshold while the man was flipping switches here and there, turning on dusted, buzzing, yellowish lights.  
Peeking inside, she could see they were entering a huge warehouse, where lots of antiquities were tidily stored.

“What are you staying over there for” He invited her with a friendly smile, while disappearing behind a tall, metal shelf full of enormous boxes and trunks.  
“Close the door and come here!” 

She startled and did as instructed.  
After a moment, he emerged from a side corridor with a big, long box in his hands, which he carefully placed on the metal table at the centre of the aisle they were in.

“We monitor humidity and temperature here, to keep the artifacts intact.” he explained, while reverentially removing the lid of the container in front of him, unveiling a beautiful longsword.

Brienne’s breath got stuck in her throat.  
She immediately recognized the weapon, it was the very reason that had led her to Tarth.  
She had seen millions of its depictions, all of them portraying its distinctive, huge, shiny ruby on the pommel. A ruby so exquisite, it flickered even in the dim light of the warehouse, ten thousands more astonishing in real life than on paper.  
The reddish steel of the blade was incredible as well, sending reflections everywhere, so shimmering the sword seemed a living being.

She looked at him awestruck.

“Is it…” she couldn’t finish the sentence, so unbelievable as it was to have such a legendary item in front of her. 

Dr. Lannister nodded, smiling.  
“Pick it up” he encouraged her.

She had come to study it, see it, but being allowed to actually touch and lift it was beyond her dreams. As she approached the sword with deference, she could feel his expectant gaze on her.

When she lifted the blade, she was amazed at the lightness and balance of the weapon, incomparable to anything she had taken up before.

A sudden and overwhelming wave of sadness took Brienne the moment she wield it.  
Such a magnificent piece of steel belonged to the ground yard, where it could confront its akins. But somehow, she knew, no, she felt, there was no equal to this sword. 

“Is it...Valyrian steel? I’ve never seen it in real life” she whispered.  
Jaime just nodded. 

“Its.. balance and weight are incredible.” she assessed “How did it end up here?”

She continued to savour the feeling of brandishing the sword while she spoke.  
Something in her made it hard to put it back in its box.

A flash of something she couldn’t catch passed through Jaime’s eyes. It seemed like delusion, maybe, but in a moment, as it had appeared, it had vanished.

“It’s mine. Or rather, it’s my family’s”  
She stopped mid movement, taken by surprise.

“This is the source for my studies.” He admitted.  
The man watched her putting the blade back in its container, pausing for a bit with an awkwardness that didn’t belong to him.

“I mean, family lore.” he quickly corrected himself. “I’ve told you I am not a Lannister of Casterly Rock and I was born and raised on Tarth.  
The Maid of Tarth and Jaime Lannister are my ancestors, in fact.  
I have no tangible proof, of course, or I would already have a Golden Raven on my shelf, but I am pretty confident of my sources.”

Brienne didn’t answer.  
Her logical brain kept reminding her he couldn’t trust sources he couldn’t see, yet.. something inside of her made her feel this was all true.

“Do you know what I’ve always dreamt of?” he went on, absentmindedly brushing the box on the table. “Reuniting it with Oathkeeper.” 

“The other legendary sword?” She gasped, surprised both of the statement and his sudden genuineness. “But..they say it’s lost. We don’t even know how it looked like.” she argued, incredulous.

“Listen, I know a guy in Lannisport, he deals with antiquites in… some unconventional markets and he’s showed me a document… well, you’ll see.” His charming self-confidence was back with a wide grin.  
“Fancy a trip to the Westerlands, Dr. Tarth?”

*****

 _How long had he been in Penthos, being Jon Rivers?_ _  
_ _Weeks? Months? Years?_

_He really didn’t know._

_Once he got ashore, he had started to work for a merchant, guarding him or his goods. Even crippled, he was pretty believable in the role._ _  
_ _His body was still in good shape and he could put in good use his Lord Commander bearing._

_In Penthos, even the mere presence of Widow’s Wail fastened at his hip instilled fear. Luckily, he had never had to show his skills or his farce would have been revealed._

_His employer, Ballero Moperris, a rich middle aged man, greedy and avaricious, who liked to wear his moustache curled upside, had noticed his sword, too, and more than once had tempted him._

_“Come on, Jon,” he used to say on the days he had lost good bargains, “if you give me the sword, it will pay for your travel back to your precious island.”_

_But Jaime had decided not to take shortcuts, just like Brienne had taught him. So he kept refusing the offer._  
_Besides, the sword reminded him of his Lady._

_He could have never sold it, it would have been like selling half of his soul._  
_He felt a connection through it to Brienne, just because he knew she was wielding its twin._

_Or maybe he just needed to have something tangible to remind him of her._ _  
_ _Some days, though, he missed her so much he would have sold everything just to be able to see her from afar._

_But everyday that passed, he was closer to his departure, and it had really become a matter of few weeks now._

_He couldn’t wait to see Brienne, feel her in his arms, where she belonged. And cradle his baby too._

_His child should already have been born by now._  
_He hoped it was a girl. A little girl with golden curls and Brienne’s pretty eyes._

_He would have taught her to fight like her mum,_ _and horseback riding too, of course._

 _Brienne probably thought he was dead_. _He had never written her, too dangerous to entrust such an important information to a raven. He could only imagine what the consequences would have been if the bird was intercepted._

_He was finally ready to leave on a warm summer evening_. _He had already paid for his travel and had found a corner in the surroundings of the port to sleep away few hours, waiting to be allowed onboard._

 _During the night, though, he abruptly woke up between punches hitting him in the dark._ _  
_ _And as quickly as he had awakened, he lost consciousness._

_When he came back to his senses, the sun was high in the sky and both the ship and his sword were gone._

*****

The entrance of Casterly Rock was imposing.  
It had been the ancient seat of House Lannister once and today was a 5 dragons hotel.

While her colleague was speaking to the receptionist, Brienne rested her bags on the floor, looking around and wondering how on Planetos she would have been able to afford her stay.

She felt utterly out of place.  
Everything was luxurious and shiny and looked extremely expensive. Floors and columns were covered in the finest marble of the Vale and every corner was decorated with aery curtains made of the lushest Dornish silk.

She watched in disbelief as Dr. Lannister came back with the keys of their separate rooms, sporting a dashing grin.  
Even the five hours flight across the continent had been pleasant in the company of Dr. Lannister. He had been so much more amiable, and charming, and..whatever, since when he had dropped his smug act.

“Don’t worry Tarth, I’m not a Lannister of Casterly Rock, but they’re still distant cousins of mine. I sometimes play poker with the owner of the hotel and we’re his guests.” he paused to wink at her, then went on. “Now, let’s go and meet Bronn, shall we?”

A couple of hours later they were having dinner on the gorgeous terrace at the ground floor of the Hotel, that overlooked the suggestive Lannisport coast.

The lights on the promenade in the distance punctuated the blue of the landscape, mirroring the stars shining brightly above in the clear sky.

A sweet breeze was moving the fairy lights hanged all around the restaurant, giving to the evening too much a romantic glow for Brienne’s taste.  
But the two of them were chatting easily and glasses of arbor gold were flowing freely, so much so Brienne almost forgot where they were.

“I told you he operated on unconventional markets!” Jaime was laughing.

“Yes, but I didn’t expect to end up in a tiny cellar, looking in the eyes of a real dragon skull!” she snorted loudly “How… how did you even meet him?”

“Tyrion introduced us.”

“Wait a second, Tyrion, the owner of this hotel Tyrion?” she laughed again.  
It wasn’t even so funny, she thought, feeling her head getting lighter.  
“Do you guys have just three or four names in your family?”

“Well, I have a cousin called Kevan and an uncle Lancel. I think I have a Genna grandmother somewhere” he told her, while she was laughing again.

She drank some water, trying to regain her composure.  
“And do you trust him?”

“Who, Kevan or Lancel?”

“Bronn”

“Knowing some of the people he deals with, I trust he doesn’t cheat on the authenticity of the stuff he sells.  
Trust him as a person, no. I think he would be ready to stab me in my back for profit.”

“No, I meant about the vault.”

Jaime sighed.  
That afternoon they had met Mr. Blackwater, a sketchy man from the downtown of Lannisport, whose main source of income was the trade of antique artifacts he conducted in the basement of a dirty, semi-deserted bar he owned.

He had told them he knew of a secret vault hidden somewhere in Casterly Rock, containing all the lost Lannister wealth. Mr. Blackwater was ready to bet his money Oathkeeper was there too.

“I don’t know, he’s the kind of person who keeps his cards close to his chest.  
The vault story seems unbelievable to me, but the fact that he didn’t want to reveal how he has come to know of it makes me think there could be some truth in it.”

They stayed silent, pondering how to get onward from that point.  
They didn’t have many clues to be honest.

“Did I tell you I bought Widow’s Wail from him?” Jaime said, his voice soft.  
In the last few days Brienne had learnt that this was the tone he used when he was about to tell something personal, and hearing it made her feel warm despite the coolness of the coastal night.

“You said you inherited it”

“Not really, I said it belonged to my family because I know it did, long ago.  
But I bought it from Bronn when I was writing my novel” he said, smiling gently, lost in his thoughts.  
“He bet it during a round he ended up winning. I don’t think he really knew what he had in his hands, but I recognised it immediately and went back to his bar the day after to try and buy it from him.

Of course it was extremely expensive. It is a beautiful sword even if you don’t know its story. I had to sell my car and promise him a share on the profits from my book.  
I cycled for one year after that.” Jaime laughed.  
“He says I’m not done extinguishing my debt yet, but I’m getting close.”  
He smiled glancing at her and she felt the wine stirring in her stomach.

“It was worth it buying it, though” he went on.

“Was it?” she whispered back.

He nodded in response and suddenly Brienne felt something pulling her closer to him.  
When their noses brushed one another she realised what was happening and immediately jumped on her feet, embarrassed, blushing furiously.

“I..I better be going to bed..umm… we have much work to do.”  
She managed to say before fleeing.

On her way out, she caught only a glance of her colleague biting his lips, but by the time he managed to yell an amused “Goodnight, Tarth” she was already in front of the elevators.

Brienne woke up after a restless night in the draped bed in her superior room.  
Like everything else in the hotel, her accomodation was absurdly and excessively ornate and everything in there made her feel suffocated.

Entering the breakfast room, she was greeted by a giddy Dr. Lannister, who immediately noticed her mood.

“What’s wrong, Tarth, are you hangover? You seem…off.” He said, sitting at her empty table with a tray full of refined food.

“I didn’t sleep well” she said, stirring reluctantly the coffee that had just been served them.  
“I had this very vivid dream that.. I don’t know, it has left me disturbed”

“Want to talk about it, wench?” he asked, taking a mouthful of a rich cake.

Jaime hadn’t used that nickname since that day in the office, when she had gotten mad.

This time though, it was softer, and made her feel.. calmer, in some weird way.  
Something inside of her trusted he wasn’t going to mock her for her dream, so she started describing it.

“I was in a castle.. it looked eerily similar to here, honestly, but was...older, darker and overall, I don’t know, just less shiny, I guess?  
There were no lights, everything was lit with candles and fireplaces.

And I… well I was me, but I wasn’t quite me, if that makes sense.” she tried to articulate, frowning.  
Jaime was listening carefully to her in silence.

“I was pregnant, I think. And I felt this overwhelming feeling of grief that made it hard even to breathe.

I had a beautiful sword with me. It was long and had a lion as a pommel. I kept it hung to a belt with suns and moons.  
I was giving it to..” A dwarf? An imp? The memory of the dream was quickly slipping away.

“I don’t remember how he looked like, but I knew I could trust him.  
And I told him something like I knew he was going to look after it properly, but I also felt an incredible anguish separating from it, and...”

She frowned, trying to recollect more details, but it was all gone.

“Wait here.” he said with a feverish look.  
Brienne saw him bolt to the door and disappear up the stairs.

Five minutes later he was back in the breakfast room and of course he did not even have a drop of sweat on his forehead.

“The sword.” He said, showing some papers and sitting on his chair in a rush “Did it look like this?”

Brienne stared at the sketches on the spread pages of the notebook that he was holding in front of her and felt her blood freeze.  
They weren’t the prettiest drawings, but there was no doubt that the sword was the one she had dreamt of.

She gazed at him, incapable of saying anything.

“That’s Oathkeeper” he explained.

“How..”she muttered in disbelief “Nobody knows how it looked like, you said that yourself.” 

“No, again, you said that.  
I know exactly how Oathkeeper looks like, I’ve seen it hundreds of times, in fact.”

Brienne blinked. She didn’t understand and patiently waited for him to go on.  
After looking around them to check if someone was listening, he started speaking again.

“Do you remember I told you I know the identity of the Blue Knight through family lore, don’t you?”

She nodded, intent.

“As a matter of fact, I know it was her because I see her.  
And honestly, she looks a lot like you.” He added, flirty.

Brienne was at loss. She kept staring at him, hoping that if he went on, everything would had become clearer.

“Listen, whenever I touch Widow’s Wail” he slowly started to explain, lowering his voice “I see the past.  
But not _everything,_ I see some scenes from the age of heroes. It’s more like I can see the past through Ser Jaime Lannister’s eyes.   
And I always see you. I mean, I see ser Brienne, the Maid of Tarth.  
And believe me, I didn’t have to invent THAT much to write _the Kingslayer’s whore,_ the two of them were naughty.” he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

But it didn’t work.  
She looked at him, and she felt furious.

“Are you mocking me again, Doctor?”  
She was fuming. How could she let herself believe he had changed, how could she let herself be captivated by his fake charming manners.  
If she only thought the night before was ready to -

“I am not mocking you, Brienne.” He said, collected and defenseless as she had never seen him before. “The sword must be here in Casterly Rock, probably in that vault Mr. Blackwater told us about.  
Oathkeeper is calling you. Listen to it.” He sounded sincere and desperate, but her brain was spinning too fast to grasp anything.

So she left the room without a word, looking desperately for air.  
She needed air, fresh air to breathe and think.

She wandered between the luxurious halls on the ground floor, until she reached the beautiful terrace of the night before.  
There, breathing and observing the calm blue sea beneath her, she tried to sum up everything that had happened in the last few days.

Ruminating on swords, dreams and half-given kisses, and absorbed in her own spinning thoughts, she found herself wandering around the halls of the old castle.

At breakfast Jaime had looked sincere and convinced of what he was telling, but on the other hand, what he had just told her was completely crazy.  
Seeing the past? That would be the dream for many historians, but still, her logical brain couldn’t accept the possibility.

Moreover, what was he implying, that the two of them were ser Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth reborn?

That was absurd.  
And silly.  
The fantasies of a delusional man caught up in a world of his own invention, for sure. 

That was what he really was, he was just a man trapped in his own novel.  
And all of this trip à la Dorniana Jones had been a huge mistake.  
Believing him had been a huge mistake.  
Letting her walls down and letting him fascinate her had been the biggest of all mistakes.

Resolute of going back to her room, pack and go back to her home in King’s Landing, she moved a few absent minded steps before coming to a halt.

“How the Seven Hells do I get back upstairs?” She whispered to herself, looking around, her voice echoing in the corridor carved in stone.

She had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there, lost in her own thoughts.  
She seemed to have reached a rather abandoned area of the castle, probably used to store equipment by the hotel staff.

She touched the walls. The stones were wet and were covered in a thin layer of moss.  
She probably was in the western wing, she inferred, the one exposed to the sea and its humidity. 

A dim light, whose source she could not identify, was illuminating the corridor.  
Brienne was starting to feel uncomfortable and while trying to decide which way to go, she heard a faint noise coming from the back of the passage. 

Relieved to have spotted someone she could ask how to get out of that damned maze, she followed the noise, empty corridor after empty corridor. 

Every time she turned a corner, the sound seemed to be farther, so much so she started to think it probably echoed from who knows which room of the hotel.  
Past another corner, she found herself in front of an archway with suns and moons carved on its sides.  
  


She immediately felt her pulse quicken.  
Those weren’t random symbols, they were exactly the same as the ones she had seen in her dream.

She gingerly entered the small room carved in the rock, bowing a little bit to pass through its door. Around her, everything seemed to have been forgotten for years, if not more: chests and various objects were covered in a thick layer of dense dust.

She grabbed a heavy volume from a small shelf on her side and cleaned its cover with a movement of her hand, revealing an emblem that almost made her faint.

What she had in front of her was the crest of the ancient Kingsguard.

She took a deep breath, trying to resist the curiosity of leafing through it.  
She knew that **if** this was the original White Book the risk of ruining it was incredibly high.

But right there, in that moment, she needed answers. And that meant to have a peek.  
Feeling her heart race, with expert and careful hands, Brienne looked for the page of Podrick Payne and found the one of her namesake instead. 

A lion of Lannister and the Sun and Moon of Tarth dominated Brienne of Tarth’s page.

Brienne closed the book in shock.

Mother’s Mercy, Jaime was right. She needed to speak to him, but of course that far in the heart of the Rock her cellphone had no signal.

She turned around again, her head spinning. Then, she noticed it.  
Brienne didn’t know how it was possible that she hadn’t when she entered the room first, but she did now.

Under a small, rounded window, carved in the stone, through which she could see the vastness of the western ocean, a golden lion cub statue standed guard a sword.  
A sword just like the one in her dream.  
Just like the one Jaime had showed her earlier.

She warily grabbed it by its lion pommel and in a brisk sequence of flashes she saw everything.

She saw that same sword, new and shiny in a high tower, first.  
Not far from her a beautiful blue armor that made her feel her heart flutter.  
Then she heard a voice she knew, saying “I hope I got your measurements right” and Brienne saw Jaime, but not quite the one she had spoke to that very morning. He bore scars on his face and had a golden hand.

A blink of her eye and she saw that same man, older, in a red tent. And soon after, him again waving goodbye from afar, at the top of the tower of a castle, after a battle.

A moment later she was getting knighted in a cold night, in front of a hearth. And then again she could hear her blood singing while she and ser Jaime were fighting as one in the snow, protecting each other and dreading to lose their companion more than their own life.

Then it was just the two of them and a septon, and in the end a funeral in Jaime’s absence at Casterly, in that very room, the same she had dreamt of the night before.

All of it lasted both a lifetime and not more than a second.  
When she felt she was entirely back in her skin again, and without thinking, Brienne run back. And, inexplicably, she quickly reached the terrace of the Hotel, the one she had walked on that morning.

She ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, and incredibly, nobody stopped the madwoman running across the hotel, wielding an ancient longsword.

She didn’t stop until she got in front of his room. 

She knocked on the door, sweaty and short of breath, but she didn’t care. She needed to see him, talk to him. Whoever “he” was.

Dr. Jaime Lannister, the one she had met in college, the one she had fallen for in the last few days, immediately opened the door and looked heartbroken.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t find any word to explain what she had just experienced. Anything she could think of seemed diminishing and not worth of her whirling emotions.

So Brienne just lifted her right hand, and showed him the sword.

His expression immediately morphed in one of sheer wonder and as soon as his gaze rested on her face, shocked and agitated and red for her race, he immediately understood.

“You saw” he whispered, stunned.

Brienne barely heard the sound of the sword hitting the floor of the hotel corridor when she launched in the arms of the man in front of her.

And then, Jaime kissed her. Or maybe she kissed him. Brienne didn’t know, and didn’t care.  
But right there, in the sumptuous halls of Casterly Rock, in the arms of the man she had loved for a thousand years, she felt home.

*****

_Seasons in Penthos came and went, following a new regular cycle._  
_Summer had changed in Autumn, then in quite a mild Winter and then, Spring had come again._  
  
_Jaime had had to start again._  
_His former employer nowhere to be found, he had accepted to do whatever he was offered. Guarding goods, teaching children to spar, break woods, whatever gave him some coins, he did it._

_Sometimes he had to skip a meal or two, and his clothes had become increasingly worn out and loose._ _But he didn’t care, for his only thought, his only driving force, was the thought of going back to Tarth._

 _People started to recognise the crippled handyman who lived by the port and dreamt of the far island, s_ o _much so that they had started to call him “Tarth”. He liked it, more than he had ever liked being called Lannister. it was a honourable name, his wife’s name, after all._

_When spring came, he was ready to leave for real._  
_He demanded to sleep onboard and held his breath for all the duration of the journey, until Tarth appeared at the horizon._

_But the spring sea was forgiving and he didn’t have to face any threat, or storm, this time._

_He reached the island on a warm, early summer day, at dawn._ _  
_ _He had disembarked on a small beach with the skiff they had given him and then he had started walking towards the towering Evenfall Hall, visible even from where he was._

_By the time he reached the main port, it was almost midday._  
_He immediately got a glimpse of Brienne from afar, in the bustling street going uphill, full of people busy with their trades._

_She was still dressed in breeches, but wasn’t carrying Oathkeeper, he noticed, painfully._ _  
_ _Her hair was longer, and softer now. She was accompanied by an energetic and clumsy kid with golden locks that kept toddling around her and laughing loudly._ _  
_ _In her walk, she sometimes stopped to talk to a person, or two. But nobody was sneering at her anymore, everyone was looking at her with admiration and loyalty. She didn’t smile, though._

 _As if she had felt his gaze on him, she instinctively turned in his direction as soon as she entered the port._ _  
_ _Even from that distance, she recognised him in a glance. And, bewildered, she smiled one of those gleaming smiles of hers._ _  
_ _He was home._

*****

Dr. Tarth and Dr. Lannister were observing the display case at the entrance of the King’s Landing Historical Museum.

The original White Book, opened at Jaime Lannister’s page and the two twin swords finally reunited after a thousand years were the main pieces on display at the exhibition for the anniversary of the Dragon Conquest.

Brienne smiled at the sight of the exhibit. She would have never admitted it to a living being, except maybe for Jaime, but she was sure that since when Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail had been placed next to each other, their blades had become even more glowing than before.

The two artifacts were going to stay there for the duration of the event and then they would be moved to Evenfall, where they would be placed in the main hall in permanent display, right next to her and Dr.Lannister’s jointed office.

The two historians headed to the main entrance of the museum hand in hand and finally got out to the Red Keep panoramic viewpoint, that overlooked the capital and its unique eclectic mixture of new skyscrapers and ancient buildings.

The pair leaned on the balustrade and, as Jaime was observing the sun setting on Blackwater’s Bay, Brienne sighed.

“Have you ever seen anything after the moment when Widow’s Wail had been stolen?” She asked.

“No, I haven’t. I think in some way his memories are linked to his sword. As if it recognised him, or something like that.  
Have you ever seen anything after Casterly?”

Once they had retrieved both of the swords they had tried to see one another’s memories and forcing more of them out of the two blades, but every attempt had been unsuccessful.

“No” she said, melancholic.  
She turned to face him. “Do you think they met again?”

Jaime returned her gaze, pondering on the question.  
They really didn’t know what had happened next in the past.  
There were no records and no memories of them after what they had already found out.  
But somewhere, deep in his heart, Jaime just knew.  
He stroked her hand with his thumb and then moved closer, filling the gap between their bodies to place a soft kiss on her lips.

“No matter how long it takes, I think we always find each other, wench” 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're reading this, I hope you've enjoyed the ride.  
> The story is pretty convoluted, so feel free to AMA in the comments, I have lots of headcanons that I did not manage to include in this story, but I am willing to share.
> 
> Think of _The Kingslayer's Whore_ as "The DaVinci Code" meets "50 shades of Grey".


End file.
